This invention relates to a method for manufacturing seamless panty hose in a fully automatic and mechanical way on an industrial basis.
The parent U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,423 discusses the prior art in some detail and discloses a new approach to making panty hose with an automatic process, which are entirely finished even around their waist opening, feasible with a single pass or run in a suitably adapted machine. Accordingly, reference is made to that patent and only a few remarks are offered herein for a better understanding of the present invention.
The parent patent invention utilizes essentially prior art techniques to produce panty hose on a circular knitting machine which are formed as a continuous tube from one toe end to the other, and are subsequently subjected to a cutting operation for obtaining the waist opening and to the sewing of an elastic band around said opening, and intoduces a method of obtaining the opening already hemmed and run-proofed on the same circular machine, which is made to operate in a reciprocating mode of operation across said opening. The parent patent invention thus provides a slit tubular knitted structure.
Although the above method was entirely successful in attaining the object of a fully automatic manufacturing process, there still remains scope for further development, specially for what concern a reduction of the production times.